Tuesday, January 17, 2017

Be a Truthteller. Advocate for Museums.

Today
Gail Ravnitzky Silberglied, Vice President for Government
Relations & Communications here at the Alliance, can help rebuild an appreciation for facts in a year awash in fake news.

There are dozens
of reasons to be part of Museums Advocacy Day in February, but this year, there’s
a critical new message to carry to lawmakers: the role of museums as
truthtellers in a “post-truth” world.

A decade after comedian Stephen Colbert
introduced ‘truthiness’ into the American lexicon, Oxford dictionaries selected
“post-truth”—defined as objective facts being less influential in shaping
public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief—as its 2016 word of
the year.

The word of the year is meant to be one
that captures the “ethos, mood or preoccupations of that particular year and to
have lasting potential as a word of cultural significance.” Post-truth was
selected because of its increased usage related to the Brexit vote in the UK
and, of course, the 2016 presidential election, during which the Washington
Post blog Fact Checker (which rates political claims on a scale of 0-4
Pinocchios) reported on 314 mostly false claims by presidential candidates. An ally of one presidential campaign was even quoted as
saying, “There’s no such thing, unfortunately, anymore, as facts.”

Over time, surveys have tracked the
public’s loss of confidence in government, the criminal justice system, banks, corporations,
organized religion, public schools, and the traditional media. And 2016 made
things a whole lot worse for those in the media: more than 200 websites
routinely shared fake news that was viewed 213 million times during the 2016
campaign.

So
what can be done to disrupt the pattern of fake news, restore trust in public
entities, and bring about more civil discourse?

Enter
museums.

Americans
view museums as one of the most important resources for educating our children
and as one of the most trustworthy sources of objective information, according
to AAM’s public opinion polling. Reach Advisors found that museums rated higher
in trustworthiness than any other set of institutions measured, including Wikipedia,
local newspapers, and even academic researchers.

The
Organization of American Historians study found that museums are considered a
more reliable source of historical information than books, teachers, or even
personal accounts by relatives. (Sorry, grandpa!)

So
museums not only have amazing stories to tell—about their work with schools,
teachers, veterans, seniors, persons with disabilities, and underserved
communities—and important collections to protect, they can also boast about public
trust. Museums are credible, respected, and beloved; what lawmaker wouldn’t
want to be associated with those qualities? But if we are not at the table, no doubt museums will be on the table when Congress makes
critical budget decisions.

Make
the case that federal support is a worthwhile investment—and that the
charitable deduction is a financial lifeline for museums—by participating in Museums Advocacy Day, February 27-28 in Washington, DC.

What
else can museums do?

Jeffrey
Herbst, president and CEO of the Newseum, argues that the way to address fake
news is not by addressing the supply of it, but the demand for it. He notes
that to lessen the demand for fake news requires real news and information
becoming available to more people in a more engaging format. And museums do
this beautifully, spending $2 billion each year on education, three-quarters of
which is spent on K-12 students, often tailored to the state, local, or core
curriculum. One example is the Newseum teaching media literacy—discerning what
is true and what is not by analyzing sources and evidence—to millions of
students through the free online NewseumED program.

Museums can also follow the model of the
philanthropic sector.

Writing about “the pervasive loss of
trust in major institutions of government and society,” MacArthur Foundation
President Julia Stasch recently said, “To be effective, philanthropy as a
sector must facilitate, and operate in, an environment of trust and goodwill…We
must listen more, be more flexible and inclusive, and allow those who
experience directly the problems we seek to address even more room to
participate fully and lead. We cannot take trust for granted; it must be earned
in all we do, every day.”

In this “post-truth” world, museums have an opportunity
to demonstrate their immense value by continuing to open their doors, share
knowledge, engage new and diverse audiences, foster innovation, and retell the
stories from our history.

Join us in staking out museums’ rightful place as
truthtellers. We invite you to share your story at Museums
Advocacy Day. AAM members—and members of our key partnering
organizations—register for free. See you in Washington, DC!